She's Not There
by lovablegeek
Summary: [Feeling Electric] He's a hero, a lover, a prince  she's not there. Alternate Universe [One shot]


**i.**  
Gabriel swung his backpack onto his shoulder and pushed open the front door, hoping to leave before Mom noticed.  
"Gabriel?"  
Too late. He bit back an annoyed sigh and turned back. "Yeah, Mom?"  
"Don't leave without your sister," she called from the kitchen. "She's just running a little late today."  
Gabriel grimaced and rubbed his temples, trying to gather the patience to have this argument now. "Mom," he said through gritted teeth, "she's not—"  
"She's your little sister, Gabriel. You need to look out for her."  
He shook his head and stepped outside, the door closing on her words.

**ii.**  
Dan woke at the sound of his bedroom door swinging open. Gabriel stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway light. "It's three AM. Mom's still up."  
Murmuring a barely coherent curse, Dan rolled out of bed. "Thank you," he said as he passed by Gabriel. His son just nodded and wandered back to his room, rubbing blearily at his eyes.  
The lights in the kitchen were on when Dan got downstairs, Diana at the table, staring at the door. She looked up when Dan walked in. "She isn't home yet."  
Dan sighed. There was only ever one _she_. "Diana…"

**iii.**  
"Diana, how did she die?"  
Diana jumped as the doctor's voice registered. "Who?"  
"Your daughter."  
Diana frowned and glanced down in confusion as delusion warred with reality. "She didn't die. She's—"  
She glanced up again, to one side at the girl who sat beside her on the couch, her little angel leaning against the arm of the couch looking bored and slightly disgusted with all of this. She caught Diana's eye and gave her a faint sardonic smile and a glance that said both _You don't believe this crap, do you?_ and _Can we go already?_  
"She's right here."

**iv.**  
"Happy birthday to me," Gabriel muttered, rolling out of bed. He didn't really care about his birthday, except that no one else did. Mom never remembered, and Dad might vaguely acknowledge it, but only very rarely.  
He pulled on his clothes and hurried downstairs, hoping to leave before his parents noticed he was up. He was halfway down the hall before he noticed the girl leaning against the wall by the top of the stairs, blond, pretty. Gabriel walked by without acknowledging her.  
"Happy birthday."  
Gabriel stopped dead, partway down the stairs, held his breath momentarily. Finally, he murmured, "Thanks."

**v.**  
Dan listened from the bedroom, cataloguing in his head Diana's progress down the hallway. Her soft goodnight to Gabriel, two doors down, and Gabriel's response, his voice lower than Diana's. Diana told him to do his homework and go to sleep, and he assured her he would…  
Footsteps down the hall, then Diana's voice saying goodnight again, and a pause as Diana waited for a response. Dan supposed Diana really heard her, their other child who had been dead for fourteen years, the child whose voice Dan couldn't hear and never would.  
Would it all be easier if he could?

**vi.**  
At first, when the session started, she'd objected to the doctor's words, argued with him while he ignored her and kept talking, but now she just sat there, arms folded, glaring at her mother. Diana could feel her eyes boring into her, full of accusation and questions.  
_You're not listening to him, right? You're not going to let him do this. You can't ignore me like everyone else. Like Dad, like Gabriel. You let them take me away before, when I was a baby, you can't now. You can't leave me._  
Diana shook her head, almost imperceptibly. _No, I can't._

**vii.**  
The bed didn't move when she climbed onto it, and he knew he couldn't really feel her curled up at his back, but it_ felt _real, always did. Gabriel opened his eyes but didn't roll over, knowing he'd see her there, lying beside him. "I'm too old for imaginary friends," he whispered into the darkness.  
"I'm not imaginary."  
"Well, you sure as hell aren't real."  
Sarcasm never fazed her. "No."  
"What are you, then?"  
"A delusion. Or maybe psychosis."  
"There's a difference between that and imaginary friends?" He rolled over to meet her eyes.  
"I'm probably less healthy for you."

**viii.**  
No one called Gabriel at school. No one was there when he got home. He didn't find out until he'd been in the empty house for hours, and finally Dad came home, hollow-eyed, pale, and Mom wasn't with him. Gabriel's heart stopped for a moment. He bounded off the couch and rushed across the room in an instant.  
"What the hell happened?"  
He knew something had happened. Had to have, and what's more, he'd known it was coming, in a vague sort of way. Calm before the storm, something like that.  
"Your mother…"  
That was all he had to say.

**ix.**  
"Why'd you do it, Mom?"  
She turned her face away from him, stared at the wall and didn't answer.  
"_Mom_."  
"It was Natalie." Her voice was so quiet that Gabriel almost didn't hear it, but he did, just barely, and froze, feeling a bit of a chill at hearing her name, so very rarely spoken.  
"What?"  
"Natalie." Still almost a whisper. "She told me—"  
"Mom," Gabriel said, more sharply than he'd meant. "She didn't tell you anything. She's not _real_." The last phrase hurt to say, but…  
Diana's voice lowered, even softer, and hurt. "I knew you'd say that."

**x.**  
Like Mom, Natalie wouldn't look at him. She sat there at the edge of the bed after Gabriel had turned out the lights, staring out the window. Gabriel sat on the bed beside her, not touching her. He didn't want to face the fact that he couldn't.  
"Did you really make her try to… do what she did?"  
He wasn't even angry, he just… didn't understand. He couldn't make any sense of it.  
Like Mom, Natalie's voice was soft, almost a whisper. "Yes."  
"Why?"  
In the streetlights through the window, she seemed translucent, but still so solid. "I don't know."


End file.
